'Shakespeare in Love' comes to Playhouse in the Park

Nicholas Carrière as Will Shakespeare and Emily Trask as Viola de Lesseps – disguised as a man – star in the Playhouse in the Park’s production of “Shakespeare in Love.” The show runs through Sept. 30 in the Playhouse’s Marx Theatre.(Photo: Mikki Schaffner)

William Shakespeare has hit a writer’s block. He can’t even complete the first line of a sonnet. And as for his next play, the best title he can conjure up is “Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter.” It doesn’t make much difference, though. He hasn’t written a word of it yet.

If you’re a fan of period films, you may recognize that as the opening of 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love.” The movie won seven Academy Awards, including one for its screenplay, written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman. It was as hilarious and romantic as it was literate.

It took nearly 20 years for a stage version of the play to reach the United States. Thursday night, it made its way to the Playhouse in the Park, where it opened the Marx Theatre season.

The plot mirrors that of the movie. The thirtysomething Shakespeare’s career is in the dumps. He has no money and few prospects. His only champion is Christopher Marlowe, the superstar playwright of the day. But when Shakespeare – everyone calls him Will – meets a young noblewoman named Viola de Lesseps, everything changes. She is smitten by his writing and, unbeknownst to Will, disguises herself as a man in order to act in his next play.

But, like the play they are rehearsing – Will re-titles it “Romeo and Juliet” – their short-lived affair will not end well.

Naomi Jacobson plays an intimidating Queen Elizabeth I in the Playhouse in the Park’s production of “Shakespeare in Love.” The show runs through Sept. 30 in the Playhouse’s Marx Theatre.(Photo: Mikki Schaffner)

What is most intriguing about this play is how very different it is with what fills the stage these days. The goal of so many producers is to give us a play with spare dialogue that lasts 70-80 minutes with no intermission. “Shakespeare in Love” is dense with dialogue. You don’t want to miss a word, which seems fitting when it involves two of the English language’s most brilliant playwrights, Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard. (In fairness, I have to point out that Marc Norman co-wrote the film’s screenplay and Lee Hall adapted that to the stage.)

The cast of the Playhouse in the Park’s production of “Shakespeare in Love” on set designer Timothy R. Mackabee’s reinvisioned Elizabethan stage. The show runs through Sept. 30 in the Playhouse’s Marx Theatre.(Photo: Mikki Schaffner)

Hall has even added dialogue to the mix, much of it lifted from Shakespeare’s own writings. Rather than weigh the play down, it further immerses us in this deliciously romantic story. And thanks to the abilities of the two leading actors, those readings add a rich and poetic layer to the play.

Nicholas Carrière is a matinee idol vision of Will Shakespeare. But he is no shallow beauty. Driven, insecure, undone by his love for Viola, he gives us a character who is as impetuous and ardent as Romeo. And as Viola, Emily Trask is strong, smart and every bit Will’s equal. Only she and Marlowe seem to understand the insightful genius of Shakespeare’s writing.

Nicholas Carrière, as Will Shakespeare, reads a letter from Viola de Lesseps, the noblewoman who becomes is muse in the Playhouse in the Park’s production of “Shakespeare in Love.” The show runs through Sept. 30 in the Playhouse’s Marx Theatre.(Photo: Mikki Schaffner)

Just as Shakespeare would do, Hall has given us a play populated by character roles that add dash and flair and, on occasion, bawdiness to the action. Especially memorable are Avery Glymph as the elegant and ever-loyal Marlowe, David Whalen as swashbuckling actor Ned Alleyn, Naomi Jacobson as Queen Elizabeth I, as considerate as she is intimidating, Michael Brusasco as the despicable Lord Wessex, John Plumpis as an overeager producer and Barzin Akhavan as Henslowe, a long-suffering theater owner.

This production, acted with patience and refinement at every step, is as impassioned as it is hilarious. It is also much more of a tearjerker than I recall the movie being. Perhaps that's because we are so close to two real people living out their pain and their ardor in front of us.

“Shakespeare in Love” is, as the title suggests, about love. But it is also a loving and adoring paean to theater, about what outsiders may see as madness, but those who are enmeshed in it see as the great passion of their lives. What a glorious way to start the season.